


Chemical Warfare

by snuggletart



Category: Antisepticeye - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF, jacksepticeye
Genre: Drug Use, Established Relationship, Gen, VERY minute mentions of Selfcest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 19:05:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9917120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snuggletart/pseuds/snuggletart
Summary: Jack and Anti smoking weed together is My Brandbased a lot off my "verse" over on my tumblr and a lot of the positive support around my art of these two toking∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿





	

**Author's Note:**

> hmu @ snuggle-tart on tumblr to see my art and other stuff about this verse
> 
> sorry about all the exposition? i'm also not a great writer and didn't beta this, but I hope you like it anyway!!! I'm still working on the final chapter of CHO, i promise.
> 
> xoxoxo

It seems like something you'd only imagine when you were high, in and of itself - smoking weed on the roof of your apartment building, at 3 in the morning, with a malicious clone of yourself. But in the last six months, these are the softest moments that Jack's life had come to. 

The first week was the stuff of nightmares.  
He'd thought he was losing his mind - the voice in his head was distorting his perceptions of reality and identity. He was having conversations with an unseen force, a black fog inside his brain that put together words and thoughts and horrific compulsions. His upload schedule fell apart, as did most of his social life, focusing entirely on whatever was possessing him. He'd lied to Mark, a couple times, text messages saying that he was fine and just needed some space. Or at least, he's pretty sure he did. The hallucinations came fast and vivid, so Jack couldn't gather enough certainty to say that he'd sent those messages at all.  
He covered every reflective surface in his apartment, terrified of his own distorted image, staring back with mismatched eyes.

Every day melted together, hours spent curled on the bathroom floor while he fluctuated between bursts of black vomit and arguments with a faceless voice. 

Then it became it's own entity.

Jack fought tooth and nail against the exorcism, but his control over his own body was slipping, and the monster forced itself between the cracks. Jack was barely more than a vocal bystander as he slit his own throat, felt his own blood between his fingers, and split in two. 

48 hours later, he woke up. His mind was quiet for the first time in weeks.  
His living space, however, was not.

After Anti became his own physical form, a beaten clone of the body he once called his host, he blamed Jack for every mistake. If the exorcism had gone properly, he was supposed to have his own form - but instead, because of Jack's alleged interference, the demon was damned to the confines of a pathetically human form, a cage of skin and bone ripped straight from Jack's likeness. He hardly had time to assess the deranged nature of a clone, because said clone tried to kill him at every turn. 

He fought back. He had to.  
What was he going to do, call the police? He couldn't let Anti out of his apartment or his sight. So he swallowed all the fights head-on, he yelled back when Anti raised his voice, learned to duck quickly to avoid whatever the now-human replica managed to pick up and throw. They fought for weeks, finding reprieve only in rare moments of exhaustion where Anti overestimated the capabilities of his new human form, and succumbed to sudden physical demands like sleep. 

Jack was terrified of the creature, but for the first time, found himself with something of a mental upperhand.  
Anti had no idea how to be a human. He noticed it whenever the demon stumbled and knocked his head on something in moments of failed spatial reasoning. It was evident by the shrapnel of curses he spat every time he experienced pain. His weaknesses showed in the stretch of days he would go without sleeping or eating. It was taking a toll on him, and Jack knew it. 

Weeks passed before they became civil with one another.  
It was less of a truce and more of an exhausted armistice, because Anti needed someone to teach him 'human' ways if he was going to succeed in this form long enough to get his own, and Jack was willing to do whatever it took to keep himself, and the rest of the world, safe from the things that Anti had put him through once already. 

Jack didn't have much of a choice to negotiate Anti's terms anyway, because the kitchen knife was bedded clean through his palm and into the counter, keeping him pinned there. The blood and agony kept him all but occupied as Anti spoke, calm seething in Jack's face. 

They never established any conditions or signed any documents, partially due to Jack falling unconscious immediately after Anti pulled the knife out, but they collectively decided to call that fight the last. 

Their living situation was still tense and cramped, since this was a one-bedroom apartment that now contained two of the same body. Small changes came first - they took turns sleeping on the couch. They established separate wardrobes. Anti got full access to the TV, since Jack used the computer 12 hours a day to try and put his upload schedule back in order. They were, if nothing else, learning how to co-exist. Anti even did dishes sometimes. He still made occasional comments that made Jack's stomach twist, but he hadn't seen the demon shed blood in weeks. No one else was suffering.  
By the time his hand was fully healed, Jack was willing to cautiously describe Anti as a friend, if only via propinquity and the amount of time they were forced to spend together. 

Weed helped.  
It started as a solution to the pain his hand caused him - he couldn't even play videogames properly anymore, suffering a massive loss of dexterity to the wound. The doctor, though littered with concern and skepticism about the affliction, had assured him it would heal without too much permanent damage as she wrote the prescription. It was going to be a painful healing process, she warned.  
Jack drove straight to the dispensary from there.

He hadn't expected Anti to take an interest to it at all. He knew about Anti's inability to get drunk, so he assumed getting high would be no different. But he shared the first joint he successfully managed to roll one-handedly, and Anti did the rest from then onwards. 

They'd found a safe space and a common ground on the roof of the apartment building, sometimes just smoking and talking, sometimes in silence, occasionally they'd be smart enough to bring food up with them. Once they ordered a pizza and waved at the delivery guy from the rooftop.  
He saw sides of the demon that he never imagined he'd be able to even fool himself into seeing, but Anti shed his defensive attitude like layers of clothing when they were high, allowed himself a shallow human pleasure. His sharp emotional edges became rounded. The venom in a voice that Jack had been hearing for months had started to distill in the flood of smoke dancing through his airways.

It felt like a terrifying privilege to witness.

Jack never imagined he could feel comfortable in a lifestyle like this.  
But here they were - a half year, almost 200 rolling papers, two accidental makeout sessions, and a dispensary membership later - sitting on the roof in the middle of the night, burning joints between them. 

 

He almost forgets they were mid-conversation until Anti speaks up again. 

"See," his voice crackles with misuse, so maybe the silence between them had been mutual. Anti leans over with his fingers extended before he continues, a wordless demand for his counterpart to pass the joint, and Jack complies, forgetting that he was even still holding it. The cherry drips ash as the joint exchanges hands.  
The demon fidgets with it a moment, then puts it to his lips and inhales, gathering oxygen to speak with the smoke still in his lungs. 

"We aren't like humans, we aren't social creatures," his voice is strained and nasal, exhaling the distilled cloud before elaborating.  
"Ye all... stumble around for purpose. Ya find and surround yourself with other people t' keep you grounded - demons don't need that."

Jack listens with full attention, but the droop in his eyelids and the lax in his shoulders seem to communicate otherwise. It's late - he's tired and high and Anti's voice is more gentle and deceptively soothing than usual. It's like they've been up here for hours. But it's nice when his usually-reserved roommate opens up like this; demented or not, he likes to learn about his clone. He turns his entire body to face his counterpart as he keeps talking.

"We don't even have names, cuz we don't need 'em. We don't need to make friends n' relationships and all that shit. That's on you guys."  
Anti shifts, too, like a step back to Jack's one forward. His mismatched gaze is still out across the cityscape, though, focused like he's trying to count every light that's still on in building windows. 

Silence settles between them, and in a moment of bravery, Jack speaks up.  
"What about Dark?"

He almost immediately regrets asking, because the burning end of the joint illuminates a twitch in Anti's brow. His eyes don't widen or raise, but something in his countenance is rattled with the hum of thought he gives. 

They rarely talked about their other-halves when they were high. They seldom talked about them at all.  
It was one of the only parts of their shared-lives that they usually avoided disclosing- Jack didn't want to know what Dark was constantly getting up to, and if Anti managed to care any less about Mark and Jack's perfect fucking relationship, it could be considered a medical condition. The redheaded twins were just aspects of their lives that simply existed.

Anti raises the joint to his mouth and inhales stronger than usual. Jack can tell he's fighting the urge to cough, because the muscles in his throat tense up.  
He holds it longer than he normally does, too, and Jack watches smoke curl possessively around every syllable the demon speaks.

"Dark's different," he clips, tone dull of its regular bite, perhaps softened by the subject matter. "He's..."

Conversation comes to another pause, dragging on as Anti hands the joint over to Jack with surprisingly friendly fingers. Jack watches him rub at his eye - the infected one, the neon green pupil and ugly black sclera - and recognizes it as one of Anti's nervous habits. Maybe he really shouldn't have brought Dark's name into this.

However, it's with exasperation and not anger that Anti snorts the rest of the smoke out his nose and takes another breath to form words with.  
"I didn't ask for Dark. I didn't ask fer any of this." 

"I know," Jack doesn't mean to respond as quickly as he does, but he's surprised by the cough of laughter that Anti grants him.  
It takes a lot of self-control not to remind the demon that, in a way, yes he did. Jack held no hand of guilt in the possession, nor in the exorcism, nor in what has become a hazardously domestic living situation between two cloned beings. He didn't ask for any of that, either, but was surviving it every day.  
The healed scar on his hand stings with the memory.

He holds the joint with two fingers as he hits it, face crinkling at the burnt taste - they were either going to have to roll another or call it quits pretty soon. He vaguely remembers buying a bong once, and even more vaguely remembers that it got broken in a fight. 

"Would you call him a friend, though?" Jack pries with a chest full of smoke, intoxication fueling his courage. He coughs a couple times on exhale. 

"No," Anti doesn't hesitate, casually leaning back on his elbows to stretch his legs out. If Jack wasn't still coughing, he would have given a surprised look at the response. Voluntary or otherwise, the two demons were almost as inseparable as their prototypes themselves. Seldom a 24 hour period went by without Dark making an appearance in the McLoughlin living space, hands and mouth always open, overflowing with macabre poetry. He hungered for Anti every moment, and like a rumbling stomach, made it no secret. 

"Dark and I are the only two of our kind," the demon is lying down, now, arms tucked up behind his head in what could be misinterpreted as a very calm position. Jack knew better. He also knew better than to bring up the defensive tone in his doppelganger's voice. He knew the two were closer than Anti would ever let on.  
"We don't have what you n' Fischbach have. We don't get ta 'pick' each other."

Jack allows himself to think, almost bitterly, that they could never have what he has with Mark. His YouTubing idol, now boyfriend, was the only person who truly understood the radical twists and turns that Jack's life had taken in the last six months, and stood loyally alongside the entire time. Jack hoped he'd even come close to offering the same type of support when Dark came around. 

Dating Mark was the strongest anchor to the life he had before this. 

"....do you love him?" Jack thinks out loud, taking the last drag off their joint before having to snuff it out. 

"No," Again, Anti doesn't hesitate. Silence falls between them as though in the wake of thunder. It was wise not to pry, so Jack resists, instead just grating the end of their joint into the ashtray until all the embers go out. 

The pause in conversation isn’t uncomfortable or awkward like it used to be. Jack used to try and fill all silences with words, but found that more often than not, Anti would shut down entirely in response, like his voice needed to be earned. So they’d learned to mutually contribute when it felt natural, and to allow a hush when it didn’t.  
Jack pulls his knees towards his chest and rests his head on them. His eyes feel dry and he’s tired, but it feels as though there’s more to say tonight, and he’s willing to wait for that.

The YouTuber looks over at his doppelganger, whose eyes are now closed, still reclined as comfortably as possible on the tile roofing. Jack knows he’s still awake though – his eyebrows are still drawn close together in thought or perhaps irritation. He looks a lot calmer when he sleeps. Looks a lot more like Jack.

They had their physical differences.  
The scar on Anti’s throat was a big one. It had healed within hours of the self-induced affliction, something that Jack, and the bloody gash in his hand, were both very jealous of. He’d come to accept the fact that even if the demon was condemned to a human physicality, there were still things about him that were superhuman.  
But he was still piloting a mortal body.  
His hair was longer than Jack’s, almost to the point now where he could collect it in a stubby ponytail if he tried. The dark roots of his hair were overgrown, bleeding into what used to be a proud green, but in time was now almost faded to white. He’d never dyed or cut it, like Jack did. 

Veins showed in Anti’s skin – a clear sign of physical disregard. He looked sickly, all of the time, and Jack imagined that it probably wasn’t too far from how he looked himself, during those weeks locked inside the bathroom, fighting off Anti’s influence.  
He was somehow even paler than Jack, too. Which … made sense the more he thought about it; coming up to the roof during the night was as close to the outside world as Anti associated himself. He’d rather occupy himself with the TV in the living room, watching hours of terrible reality shows and feeding off the scripted discourse. 

The dark tones under Anti’s eyes are the only real point of color on his face. If he slept more than a couple hours every few days, and wore the eyepatch Jack bought him, he would be borderline presentable.

But, as he had firmly asserted, the demon couldn’t find a fuck to give about his appearance – he was so much more than the form he controlled, and Jack was equal parts intrigued and terrified of that.

Jack’s aware, at this point, that he’s staring, so he turns his gaze back to the cityscape. As soon as he does, Anti’s voice crackles up like radio static.  
“Love is human territory only.” It sounds like he’s spitting the words out of his mouth. Or, he would be, if he could gather the energy necessary to put any sober effort into them. “It’s a name y’ came up with for an emotion you invented.”

He shouldn’t, but Jack chuckles.  
“Hey, that’s not true,” he defends halfheartedly, sensing Anti raise an eyebrow without having to look over and see it. “What about animals and stuff? Swans, or whatever. They mate for life.”  
It lacks the usual fluidity, but Anti shifts to sit up again, and Jack turns to him. The expression on his face perfectly represents both his confused disapproval and his eagerness to refute the Irishman’s words.

“Yeah. They _mate_. ‘Love’ is a compulsion to breed. Ya gave it a nice name so y’ could feel better about yourselves when ye body decided it was ‘fuck o’clock’.”

Again, Jack can’t help laughing, and it feels nice. Makes this seem less like an argument and more like what it is – a pot-driven conversation.  
“That’s-!!!” he defies immediately, posture relaxing when Anti’s does the same. “-not true either! Mark an’ I aren’t just together so we can _‘breed’_.”  
Jack makes sure to raise his hands and charade quotation marks with his fingers.  
“It’s more than that. Y’ just… like bein’ with someone.”

There’s an air of firm disbelief in Anti’s expression, unimpressed and unconvinced, so Jack tries to prove a point.

“I’m sure Dark cares about you fer more than just-“  
The quirk of Anti’s eyebrow almost dares him to finish the sentence, so Jack does the opposite, and immediately shuts the fuck up. Maybe bringing up the other demon again wasn’t going to help get him anywhere.

Besides, he reasons with himself, he’s seen Dark’s aftermath on Anti’s body, the bastardization of skin that was technically once his own. He’d seen the lovebites and the ‘lovebruises’ on Anti’s neck and shoulders, no matter how fast they healed, and felt vicariously dirty for them.  
He couldn’t fool himself into thinking their relationship was nonsexual.  
He thinks about rolling another joint.

“Dark doesn’t love me either,” interjects the thought, and Jack is expecting a different look on Anti’s face than the one he gets. He doesn’t look forlorn about the concept at all – he’s got a grin on the corners of his mouth, and if he found a way to look any more like a know-it-all, Jack would have had to of taken a picture.

“I don’t think that’s-“ he tries to contest, but Anti speaks over him again.

“He can’t. He doesn’t. We won’t.”  
There’s no real bite to the words, but Anti’s collecting himself like he’s ready to walk away from the subject. His jacket, which he’d been lying on up until now, is pulled out from under him and thrown over his shoulders again.  
“Love is a human thing.”

He stands, and Jack takes enough of a hint to gather himself and do the same, making sure to cap their ashtray before picking it up. They’d probably get evicted if the apartment hallways started to reek in the same way both boys did after one of their smoking sessions.  
The Irishman isn’t ready to leave the conversation on that note, though, so he gathers the rest of his high into the careful choice of words, body square to meet the exact height of his roommate’s.  
“Well, yer a human now, so.”

Instead of daggers in Anti’s eyes, the demon just rolls them, and looks like he might have been more offended if it wasn’t for the THC in his system. He takes less time than Jack thinks he should have, to come up with his response.  
“Yer right, I’d _love_ to push ya off the edge of this roof, Seán. Move.”

He shoulders past, and Jack lets him, laughing defeatedly at the empty threat. It was a battle they could fight another day in the name of preserving their truce.

Irony chuckles at him as Jack follows Anti back into the building like a shadow.


End file.
